Child care costs and accessibility can impact the long run labour supply by affecting the size and quality of tomorrow's labour force: size, through the birth rate; and quality, through child development, and human capital accumulation. Understanding the determinants of fertility is central in today's Europe, where low birth rates are of great concern. In a knowledge-based society, it is also important to uncover the preconditions for human capital accumulation, both for the growth potential of the economy, and to prevent disadvantaged children from falling behind. The effects of child care on the long run labour supply and access to human capital will be studied with the aim of answering four questions:
1) Do child care costs affect fertility? Exploiting the natural experiment created by the implementation of the Swedish child care cost reform of 2002, the causal effect of child care costs on fertility will be studied.
2) Does child care attendance affect child and parental health? The natural experiment above is used to study the impact of child care on health as measured by patient and insurance register data.
3) Does child care attendance affect adult educational attainment? Long run causal effects of childcare on education in adulthood will be identified using regional variation in the timing of the 1970s Swedish child care expansion.
4) How can child care affect the formation of values and preferences? The impact of child care on the process of cultural transmission will be studied in a theoretical model.